Embodiments of this disclosure generally relate to the field of communication systems and, more particularly, to configuring communication devices for use within a communication network.
At times, a user may want to connect a computing device to a guest network to gain access to the Internet and other network resources. In order to connect to the guest network, the user may participate in an authentication procedure to cause the user's computing device to gain access to the network resources available through an access point (AP) of the guest network. One authentication procedure includes a user entering a passphrase onto the user's computing device. However, it is usually cumbersome for the user to enter a passphrase on the computing device. Furthermore, the user can share the passphrase with others, making the passphrase less secure.
Another authentication procedure includes redirecting a browser on the user's computing device to a captive portal for authentication. However, this procedure can result in undefined behavior for web pages that have been loaded into the browser prior to the authentication process. To avoid the undefined behavior, the user typically has to remember to refresh or restart the browser during the authentication procedure in order to load the captive portal on the browser. In addition, the captive portal can be exploited with a packet sniffer. Both of the authentication procedures described above rely on passwords for user authentication. These passwords are typically weak, and can be guessed by a hostile party. Once the password is known, the hostile party can set up a rogue AP that impersonates the legitimate AP, resulting in a security threat to the user.